Kayla Harrison finished Amanda Nunes with a rear-naked choke in the fourth round. The fight has just concluded, with Harrison earning the submission victory.
Kayla Harrison submitted Amanda Nunes with a rear-naked choke in the fourth round, earning the stoppage victory in a fight that has just concluded.
The finish adds another submission win to the record of Harrison, who is 16-1-0 and 35 years old. The American, six-foot-nothing in neither case but listed at five-foot-eight (173 cm) with a 66-inch (168 cm) reach, has built her reputation on grappling. Her takedown rate of 22.5 per 15 minutes is extraordinary by any standard, and she lands 3.81 significant strikes per minute at 73 percent accuracy.
Nunes, 38, from Brazil and the Lioness Studio team, falls to 23-6-0 with the defeat if the result is added to her listed record of 23-5-0. She has the same five-foot-eight (173 cm) height as Harrison, with a 69-inch (175 cm) reach, a three-inch edge. The Brazilian lands 4.55 significant strikes per minute at 51 percent accuracy and averages 2.73 takedowns per 15 minutes.
Why it matters
- Nunes's most recent recorded fight was a unanimous-decision title win over Irene Aldana at UFC 289 on June 10, 2023, a five-round bout. Before that, she beat Julianna Pena by unanimous decision on July 30, 2022, to avenge her December 2021 submission loss to Pena.
- That loss to Pena, a second-round submission, was the other recorded occasion on which Nunes was finished by a choke or similar hold. The Harrison result is the second submission defeat in her recent recorded run.
- The fight went to the fourth round, so Nunes lasted longer against Harrison than she did against Pena in 2021, which ended in Round 2.
- Harrison's striking output of 3.81 per minute trails Nunes's 4.55, but her takedown rate is roughly eight times Nunes's 2.73 per 15 minutes, a gap that frames the stylistic contrast between the two.
Harrison's submission attempts per 15 minutes are listed at 0, which makes a fight-ending choke a notable entry in her ledger given how much of her game is built on getting opponents to the mat and controlling them.
The result is a significant moment for both women. For Harrison, it is a victory over one of the most decorated fighters in women's MMA history. For Nunes, it is a defeat that arrives after a long layoff by the numbers: her most recent recorded fight dates to mid-2023.
